Donalsonville, GA

Donalsonville is Seminole County’s seat in southwest Georgia, a city named for businessman John Ernest Donalson. The 2020 census counted 2,833 residents. Donalson’s lumber mill helped start the town’s growth, and the city was chartered in 1897 before becoming the county seat in 1920. The Seminole County Courthouse, built in 1922, still gives downtown the courthouse-square feel of a place that serves the surrounding farms.

ATTRMichael Rivera / CC BY-SA 3.0

Lake Seminole changed the southern edge of the county after the Jim Woodruff project was completed in 1957. The reservoir sits where the Flint and Chattahoochee rivers come together, and Donalsonville became the Gateway to Lake Seminole for fishing, boating, and the road south. Seminole County schools run from preschool through high school, and the county library keeps another civic thread in town. Donalsonville has two scales at once: a courthouse city with a local school calendar, and a lake-country base tied to a much larger river system. The courthouse and lake give it two different horizons.